The 2024 Sunday Times Literary Awards celebrate 34 years of showcasing
South Africa’s finest non-fiction writing and 23 years of fiction that transports
readers to captivating worlds. In partnership with Exclusive Books, winners
receive R100,000 each. This year’s shortlist features three of the books we
are proud to have published: David Viviers’ Mirage, Sven Axelrad’s Buried
Treasure, and Justin Fox’s Place. These works, brimming with imagination,
history, and exploration, offer readers a journey through time, space, and
the vibrant landscapes of South Africa. Join us in exploring these exceptional
titles and celebrating the powerful narratives that define and shape our
literary landscape.
by David Viviers
Out here, the past and the future lie over each other, like the strata of koppies. And in certain places the boundary between the two rubs clean.
A century-old trunk has been dug up near the railway village of Sterfontein. Inside is the lost journal of Victorian author Elizabeth Tenant – and what appear to be the remains of a child.
Michael, a university student recovering from a broken heart, is intrigued by what the journal describes: a scarlet curtain billowing above the desert, covering the entrance to another world. But things become even stranger when a line in the journal seems to be connected to Michael and his cosmologist mother, written a hundred years before their time.
Without much to go on, Michael travels to the old Karoo hotel where Elizabeth wrote her novel Mirage. Amid talk of omens in the sky, ancient prophecies and the end of the world, he tries to decipher the journal’s secrets. As one mystery leads to the next, constellation-like patterns between his own life and Elizabeth’s appear, helped along by Renata, a self-proclaimed medium, and Oom Sarel, the local museum curator. But as time starts to dissolve in the mirages of the Karoo, it becomes more and more difficult to know what is real and what is not.
And why can’t he shake the feeling that he’s been to the village before?
Judges said:
An intriguing narrative that transcends time and space. The plot of this novel seamlessly connects the past and the present without impeding the flow of the narrative. Erudite without being pompous or overly didactic, the author guides the reader through lessons in history, cosmology, and a spectrum of diverse human emotions. With a sharp, observant eye that sparks our own curiosity, the author has crafted a deeply affecting and sensuous novel.
READ Five Minutes with David Viviers
by Sven Axelrad
Welcome to Vivo, where the only cemetery is run by old Mateus and his dog, God. Mateus’s eyes aren’t so good these days, which is why he has been burying bodies in the wrong graves, and also why, while out walking with God, he trips over a young homeless girl. On a whim, Mateus decides to appoint the girl as his apprentice. Novo, who has been sleeping on the street with a dog-eared copy of The Savage Detectives as her pillow, is determined to reorganise the cemetery, but she will have to hurry: buried awry, divorced from their names, the ghosts of Vivo are accumulating, unable to proceed to the afterlife without knowing who they are. Also, someone, or some thing, is on the loose, killing people and closing in on the one person who can make things right.
Vivo is a town with a pigeon-messaging service, a phone booth used for romantic encounters, and a number of residents who are not quite what they seem, including a prostitute, a professor and a prophetic flower-seller. Oh, and the coffee is hellishly strong.
Erudite and wise, magical and quirky, Sven Axelrad’s debut novel is an enchanting adventure that explores what our names mean to us and who we are without them.
Judges said:
This adventurous coming-of-age story weaves together diverse characters and worlds that stand in stark contrast with one another. Clever, witty and playful, yet with dark and foreboding shadows, Buried Treasure is a highly imaginative and entertaining piece of writing. This is a debut that punches above its weight.
READ ‘On Living with Polite Ghosts and Experiencing Miracles’ by Sven Axelrad
Place: South African Literary Journeys
by Justin Fox
“Let us, then, set off together on a series of journeys around South Africa with an old kitbag full of books instead of maps to guide us. Let us follow meandering paths through the landscapes of literature, and celebrate how local authors, characters and readers are shaped and inspired by place …”
In this gripping travelogue, Justin Fox goes on a one-of-a-kind journey. Marrying his love for travel and writing, he sets off to explore the places of his favourite books. From the mountainous eastern Karoo of Olive Schreiner to the big-game lowveld of Sir Percy Fitzpatrick, from Deneys Reitz’s wide-open Cape interior to the bushveld of Eugène Marais’s Waterberg, Fox reveals the majestic power of place. Through the savannah of Herman Charles Bosman’s Marico, the dusty plains of JM Coetzee’s Moordenaars Karoo, the forests of Dalene Matthee’s Garden Route, the subtropical hamlets of Zakes Mda’s Wild Coast, and finally the sandstone crags of Stephen Watson’s Cederberg, he brings to life the settings we’ve only seen through characters’ eyes.
Place is a moving love letter to South Africa, merging literature and landscape, and taking the reader on a breath-taking journey – into the heart of South Africa’s spectacular landscape and the inner-worlds of its most celebrated authors.
Fox writes:
“The idea behind Place was to embark on a series of journeys around South Africa using literary works instead of maps to guide me. While it is rewarding to engage with landscape through the pages of great books, it’s even better to put boots on the ground, text in hand, and experience first hand something of the authors’ relationship with place, to hear the voices of their characters in situ.”
Judges said:
A travelogue, in which the author’s scholarship sits lightly upon his shoulders, as Fox pens a love letter to this land by retracing the steps of some of our most celebrated authors, as he takes stock of their influence on him – and us.
READ "Walking in Author’s Footsteps Transforms Reading into a Rich, Real Experience," by Justin Fox
Winners will be announce in November. Good luck to our authors!
YOU MAY ALSO ENJOY
Exploring South African Heritage with Jackie Phamotse